( 003 » ENSEMBLE ) party time.

[reveriemod]

» WHO? Everyone
» WHEN? July 1 to July 8
» WHERE? Entire Station
» WHAT? 168 hours of being forced to listen to cheesy music on repeat…
» WARNINGS? the mundane and slightly ridiculous becoming terrible, cheesy pop music, forced sleep deprivation, anger, loss of control, emotions, potential for stabbing, hallucinations, mania, memory loss, confusion, seizures, depression.

0 0 1 » LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED

It starts in the mess hall and it starts slowly. At first, it can barely be heard over the conversations that are happening but as the volume increases, it becomes apparent that music is playing. Not just any music: characters from Earth will recognise these pop hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s. They’re the kind of hits one might find on a Spotify playlist titled “Top 100 Cheesy Hits” or “Songs To Sing To In The Shower”. Power ballads. Boy bands. Girl bands. Woodstock.

Soon, the music can be heard all across the station, blasting from every speaker, audible in every room. Characters who were asleep in their quarters will be woken by the music’s volume, characters under the shower might want to start singing along (but remember, the walls might just be thin enough for the neighbours to hear) and if characters clear some chairs, there’s enough space in the bar for an impromptu dance floor.

Some characters have been working on improving the replicators, too, so while the alcohol supplies at the bar are dwindling and all but gone, the replicators are now capable of making something that’s palatable, even if it’s not quite up to scratch.

What’s the harm in having some fun? It’s just a little music, right?

( ♪ )

0 0 2 » I WANT OFF THIS RIDE

It’s just a little music, right? And it is — but it just won’t seem to stop. The first few hours may have been entertaining, at least for those who did not get woken up by the sound of decades (centuries, even) in the past, but the music keeps going long past the point of entertainment.

After two hours, the songs start repeating. After six hours, they’re still playing. After twelve? Still playing. Twenty-four? Still playing.

Sleep becomes all but impossible as the music keeps playing loudly in every room and every corridor of the station. Attempts to shut it down prove unsuccessful.

Forty-eight hours later, the music is still playing.

Characters will begin to suffer the effects of sleep deprivation, in addition to the general irritation that might come from hearing the same two hours worth of cheesy pop songs on a loop: headaches, exhaustion, tremors, irritability and confusion to begin with, followed by lapses in memory, muscle aches, malaise, violent behaviour, hallucinations or mania as cognitive effects set in, possibly also seizures and depression.

And still, the music keeps playing.

( ♪ )

0 0 3 » THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE WATER

The music and the sleep deprivation it causes are the reason for many of the symptoms people are feeling, but something is happening that goes even beyond the music, beyond the lack of sleep: something has changed about the food replicators.

The food is slowly getting better, for one, thanks to a group of individuals who’ve been working on improving them. Beyond that, however, imperceptible, the composition of the food comes with something extra -- namely heightened emotions. Whatever causes it, it’s in the water, too.

Those who are already angry feel angrier and have a harder time controlling that anger. Those who are already sad feel sadder and have a harder time not bursting into tears. Those who are already apathetic feel more apathetic and have a harder time prompting themselves to so much as move. The effect holds for all emotions, heightening them, making them harder to control or counteract. Impulses become action far more quickly than usual. Irritation at the music may become anger at the person singing along under their breath and that, in turn, may lead to someone getting stabbed with a plastic fork.

It’s nearly impossible to keep a cool head, though some people seem more affected than others.

OOC: This part of the plot is completely opt-in. Whatever characters are feeling will be heightened and strengthened and their impulse control lowered. Make sure to get ooc permission for any stabby action of comparable deeds, and keep in mind that non-con is prohibited in game.

( ♪ )

0 0 4 » AFTERMATH

After 168 hours, the music stops. Whatever was in the water and the food is gone again, meaning characters may never know it was there in the first place. After all, some of the effects of it could have been down to the sleep deprivation as well…

Still, there’s something off about the whole thing. It might seem like someone is watching them. Toying with them. But surely that’s just paranoia, right?

In the aftermath of sleep deprivation and poor impulse control, characters might want to get some sleep or try to mend those relationships that were damaged by careless words or people getting creative with the cutlery.

( ♪ )

Please remember to put warnings in subject lines if so required.

Comments

[luciformis]

[ It's a consistency and a constant. Akira molds to his unspoken direction as easily as he gives it. Ryo is careful, fastidious and Akira accepts it with no complaint on his end. ]

Yeah, [ he echoes. It's one both given and gotten. It feels the same as much as it feels different. ]

[ It's okay, he wants to add. But, it isn't. Not really. He knows. He knows Akira's internal worries. But, there's no true understanding between two opposing points. Ryo had never had anything like that — a family, a group of friends. In his childhood, he had Jenny. But, Jenny left him to do as he wished and as the other children grew strong and slow under the weight of affection, Ryo left in starvation of it. He grew even still, relentless and tall, but the roots were always kept inside Akira's palms. And Akira was absent, as Ryo was absent. In another life, it's possible he might have been able to admit that any such feelings that welled inside him were named after all.

But, this is the life he was given. There's no pushing back the hands on a clock. And there's no declaration that Akira could be right in that emotions were more real and more weighted than most anything else overall.

The same comfort that had always manifested in such small acts between them shifts as Akira presses his face into his shoulder. It knives through something hotter and more painful, seizes at the walls of his ribs. He forgets to take a breath, the movement of his hand upward stuttering before settling where it always does. He cradles the back of Akira's head in tandem with a shorter inhalation — and blinks hard once, twice. His fingers thread through the dark of Akira's hair, the arm at his back shielding Akira as much as it hides him. Whatever it was that had torn through him manifests now in a more familiar shape. He lets the name of it sit still in the fog his cognition and looks at it, in the same frame he'd looked at the guy who'd once taped Akira: protective. Protective, he tells himself. Protective.

Protective, like the grind of a box cutter raised against anything at all that could hurt him. Protective, like his knee sinking into soft fat about childhood stomachs. Protective, like dumping his blood prize at Akira's bare feet. Protective, like the firing of a gun at the docks.

But, there's nothing more that he can do for continual blare of music. There's nothing more than he can offer, but another attempt to muffle the worst of it. He'd expended more conventional efforts. He'd expended unusual efforts. And still, Akira'd had been as sleepless as himself. He buoys himself, unconsciously, with the fact that there's always more to try and that, like all things, a solution will present itself to him. Somehow. Somehow — he's quiet for a long time, before he rests his cheek against the crown of Akira's head. ]

It was raining, [ he starts, the impulse peculiar and his words soft. They slur together briefly, before separating into equal parts. He thinks maybe he should clarify. He thinks he probably doesn't have to. ] The first time you cried on me like this. [ He remembers watching, up on the tips of his feet to see over the bar of the door. Akira had taken a bottle of milk, but he wasn't clever about it. You're crying too, he'd said. He still couldn't understand it. Or, perhaps, he didn't want to. The current constriction in his chest and the faint furrow between his brows that forms is reflective of what had stirred up in him back then. ] I told them I'd given you all the food you'd stolen.

[ It wasn't that much of a challenge, in the end. Most everyone would have blamed him anyway. Ryo had done plenty enough to deserve that suspicion. Even now, he uses his reputation to do what he can. It doesn't stop the music or the impact of the food he'd attempted in any way to improve, but — at least the song ends. Though, it's not to say the newest it's any improvement over the last. ]

[dvmn]

[Akira can focus on the problems in front of him. Their confinement in this station in foreign space, adrift over a nameless and unidentified planet, how there were still yet chambers within this place they hadn't been able to broach, how there might be the solutions to the mysteries which plagued them stored within. These were things he could see. He could run his fingers along the braced doors, feel the cool surface of the metal broken by scoring and rivets; he could feel the sense of confusion and dread that clung to them all like a fine film. The forefront of his mind had always had a limited capacity, so when these distractions existed, presenting him with problems that he could work with Ryo to find solutions for, everything else fell away. Sometimes he felt that was preferable. These were weights that he could grasp and lift and move, but everything that he had left behind was something that he drug behind him, unseen but never unnoticed. He thinks that perhaps he should feel shame for wanting to minimize the pain of it. He'd never run from such things, instead choosing to embrace it just for the sense of feeling anything at all.

But the world that they had left behind was something thoroughly out of reach, so much so that it barely stood to exist anymore. No matter what he did, his strength and speed and fury and pain were all minuscule and meaningless, a single hoarse shout into the silent vacuum of space. So he finds himself torn between what he has always done and what his newfound strength had encouraged him to do, feeling it necessary to everything that he felt but feeling utterly stymied that there was not a single thing he could do about it.

So he cried. It was the only thing he could do about it, grasping at nothing constructive but instead only just pursuing outlet, providing some way that the sorrows circuitously trapped inside his chest could find some way to escape.

He could have easily anticipated what Ryo would do because he had done it perhaps a dozen or more times before - the easy and almost automatic pathing of his hand to the back of his neck, to hold him behind his head, fingers sinking into the haphazard locks of his hair. It's immediately soothing to at least a piece of him, unable to affect the deeper root of his distress but at the very least alleviating what rested on the surface. Some of the manic aimlessness that came with exhaustion slows and fades, making the energy about Akira's demeanor at least calm as he leans into Ryo, into the embrace of his arm and the resting of his head over his own, crying and yet drinking in his presence as panacea to his own concerns and doubts.

It makes it easier to listen to him despite the noise from the loudspeakers, feeling the resonance of the words in his chest. He almost doesn't need to clarify; the familiarity of them clinging to one another like this and how it stretched back throughout their history with one another made it already clear to him, painted as plainly as if it had happened just a few days ago rather than years and years. But it also reminded him of the time they had first met - though the clouds had been thick, heavy with the promise of rain, they hadn't yet broken. But they might as well have. He had felt the gloom and ennui of the rain trapped within Ryo even then, coloring that moment with a similar shade.

He blinks his eyes open at the admission; it's not something Ryo has ever told him, though it makes sense. Adults' ire had always ended up finding its way to him, regardless of whether or not it was correctly-placed (and even if it was, was it ever right to hold frustrations against a child in such a manner?). It had followed them both around the time he had tried to nurse the cat back to health, assumedly because they both kept disappearing from supervision. But...

Akira is silent for a long moment, his tears slowing. Then he speaks up, his voice raw from the crying.] You - didn't have to.

[It's quiet, a simple statement. There's nothing accusatory in it, nothing to insinuate that Akira was upset by what he had done. It was just a fact. Ryo had never needed to do any of the things he'd done to help him in their childhood, and yet he had. It stretched on throughout the years to now, his hand supporting the back of his head, the hum of his words sinking through his senses to rest against his bones.]

Thanks.

[Said as he nuzzles his way closer toward Ryo's core, his breath warm against what part of his neck emerged from the thick coat. He sniffs, though his sobbing has died and his tears are about to go the same way.]

[luciformis]

[ In the core of what Ryo is, the Earth had always been something beautiful and desired. It was blue once, so very blue, and all that lay within it was new and fresh. He can't remember it, of course. He remembers very little at all. But, some part of him knows he'd lost everything. And some part of him holds tightly, jealously to all that he has left. How could something broken like him, something that doesn't even know how broken it is, begin to understand why it is does the things it does? There's no puzzling himself together out here in the darkness, orbiting a planet like and unlike their own — an artificial satellite.

Everything that is only Ryo has everything he'd have taken here. Even unknown to himself, it sat situated against him, a teary and aching thing. He feels his own chest tighten for reasons he doesn't understand — or tells himself he does not understand —, and after a long time, there's a softer relief from that as Akira soothes against him. ]

It's fine, [ he says. He pushes the pale of his fingers through the dark of Akira's hair, the thick of it spilling across his knuckles like ink. Even back then, Ryo hadn't tolerated the difficulties that others would bring to Akira's doorstep. Even when he was considered wrong, Ryo found a way to dampen the blow where he could manage it. He hadn't been certain why he'd done it at first, but he finds some certainties in it now. Like the steady rush of tides, there's something instinctual and worn within the confines of himself that path him back to gathering Akira close to him every time. It'd been in mirror of what he knew, what Ryo then came to know. The first of anything at all he recalled, beyond the smell of salt. It was Akira, dry and warm and alive. It was him, assuring Ryo needn't be frightened of anything at all. In a way, it's like that: no matter how far away and how far flung they were from the places and people they left, Ryo would find some way back. And it was because — ] I know I didn't have to.

[ The "I wanted to" is implicit. It serves as a shield even now, years after the fact. He remembers the aides had punished him for that, though the punishments never deterred him. It didn't matter what they did. Ryo would still find a way around it and repeat the same actions again and again. If Akira had done it a thousand more times with a thousand more cats, Ryo would have still taken what they'd given out. Ryo hadn't been frightened of adults back then and certainly wasn't frightened by them now. No matter how they attempted to impress upon him the importance of staying within the mold of society, Ryo had only grown beyond its bounds — heedless. It was just the way it always was, as much as it always was with Akira in his own respect.

He lifts his cheek from the crown of Akira's head, mouths against hair: ]

Is it quieter? [ The music, everything — he doesn't specify. He feels the cut of Akira's jaw, the way he noses into the crook of his neck. Ryo tilts his head, just a little, to give him the barest amount of access he can afford. Ryo's coat is a heavy thing, as soft as any skin Akira can rest his hands upon. It makes him look sturdier than he appears, but he'd always been surprisingly sturdy to begin with. He still is, on so many days without sleep. His voice is a thicker hum, saturated with the fatigue they all undoubtedly feel, but Ryo hadn't needed that same rest as even Akira did. ]

[dvmn]

[It was a rare quality to possess the self-awareness to be able to fully understand one's faults and strengths. People tended to hyper-focus on what small parts they could see, ignoring the grayer areas where such boons and detriments could overlap. That was where bravery strayed into foolishness, where caution dissolved into cowardice. It was a cruel sort of irony that the larger picture was often more visible to others, but that they also lacked the personal context for the constellation of personality. Akira's unique skill offered him the smallest glimpse into that, but it only extended so far - he could only offer the benefit of his perspective to those who wished to listen, those who weren't immediately turned away by his sometimes off-putting keen insight.

It had only ever brought Ryo closer to him, since he alone seemed to understand the motivating force behind so much of what he did — that he was less motivated by selfishness and more by pain and by fear. Akira couldn't possibly understand any more than Ryo what was the progenitor of these motivations, but he was also the type of person to think that the cause was not always so important as doing what one could in the present moment, regardless of how wise that was.

He had never naturally been a delinquent, but when the only ways he could puzzle out to shed Ryo of his melancholy were ones in which they had to sneak out to somewhere where they shouldn't be, he had fallen easily into it. Akira was highly principled, but those principles were relative: his hazy understanding of adults' decrees for their "safety" paled in comparison to his own assurance that overlooking them would allow them to have some fun, to cheer Ryo up. That doing something similar might allow him to save the life of a creature everyone else had decided to neglect, relegating it to its own fate. He had always railed against the casual cruelty that people seemed to show, hypocritically believing the best in them, thinking surely that that must not be all that there is to people.

He understands what Ryo means. He had always been in a way complicit with what Akira had decided to do — even when he had claimed it to be foolish, the words had seemed a flimsy facade. They had always been two incredibly different individuals trying imperfectly to support one another.

Akira nods, slowly, in answer to the question; Ryo had scarcely put breath to it but he had heard it, regardless of what aural input the speakers had. Exhaustion drapes itself over him like a weighted blanket, resisting against his muscles, leadening his eyelids.] You always make everything else quieter. [The way the words mumble out, quiet and jumbling together in discombobulation of sleep deprivation, lends to how automatic the thought had passed from his brain to his lips. Even now he doesn't think twice about it; it's true, and that's usually enough for him. His attention so naturally gravitates to Ryo that sometimes it's hard to pay attention to other people as well as is conversationally appropriate. The same can be partially said for the music as it fades to a somewhat aggravating backdrop.

He doesn't speak for a moment longer, and then he gives Ryo a small squeeze before his arms start to drop away from him.]

Let's... get offa the floor.

[He feels like it's probably a good first step.]

[luciformis]

[ To Ryo, Akira had always had a particular strength. Amid the soft discernment of his insight, he'd given Ryo an opportunity that he had never been afforded. From the first time Akira had taken his hand, the weight of it had been enormous. In all of him, no matter how lost he had been, his body held no memory of being held. There had been nothing in him that knew the weight of arms, the damp press of tears into salt-slicked hair. To him, he had no concept of being afraid, not really. But, he was. He was and it had driven him, that same sensation and residual ache of rejection from something he could not name — his box cutter fumbled for when bathing at the appearance of animals, the cast of his umbrella over the wet crown of Akira's head. Where Akira had opted to shelter the lifeless body of that cat, Ryo recalls wanting to shelter him. He'll get ill.

And like Akira, he had no regard for cold rain that matted his hair, his clothes to the pale of his skin.

In some ways, Ryo knew his influence upon Akira was just as much as Akira's influence upon him. They had been abstracted shapes, the perspective on life rearranging neat and fine when placed side-by-side. Like the cut of shore lights against the dark, it made the journey to wherever it was they were headed more comprehensible. Even here, in all the oddities that surround them, there are pieces that fold more recognizably into sense when Akira idled near. And it had always been that way, perhaps, since the afternoon Akira had conceded to sneaking off.

The adults were relentless, overbearing. Ryo, for his part, had almost always wanted to be left alone outside of Akira. And it had a stricter day, when he and Akira had made it out to the edge of the field before they were caught. It was Spring then. The grasses were high and from their perspective, they could catch the barest trace of salt on the air. Ryo had answered his questions as he always had, his small hand tucked in his. It had been nice. He remembers, distinctly, the way Akira's expression warmed when he finally let his mouth tip into the smallest of smiles.

But, of course Akira would understand what he means. After all, he would have deciphered Akira in the same way. It was a system devised through years of work, threaded back together under the most dire of circumstances. And now, even away from that state, it still holds with all the same persistence, strength.

And it does now, when Akira nods against him. It does now, when Akira murmurs so close that he can feel the words and how they shape. It does now, even when Ryo feels an odd rush of warmth root out from his chest, flood out to every edge. He knows the base, but the rest tangles into something dense and indiscernible. It's almost painful in that way, something that compels him without thought of it to press a kiss against the thick of Akira's hair, soft and lingering. Like Akira, he doesn't think more on it. He doesn't contemplate all he has conveyed in a singular gesture, his words coming a moment later to answer all the rest. ]

Yeah, [ he hums more than says. It comes like an exhalation, like the loosening of arms around him. He draws his hand from the dark of Akira's hair, takes a brief moment to smooth back the mess. It doesn't do much good, but it falls in a way that could be considered artful, mussed. Ryo doesn't quite smile, but the implication is there. It catches near the corners of his eyes, weary in the way that they normally wouldn't be. There's that sharpness there, but it seems further away the more the music threads into every moment of being. But, there's that quiet assessment to make sure Akira is steady before he pulls himself to his feet. His palm braces against the wall as he does and it keeps his movements smooth and steady as he reaches down to him with his free hand, steady and outstrected. ]

Here. [ He knows how exhaustion eats away someone. He knows how it slinks into muscle and bone, bundles itself tight and persistent there. He knows the brain and the body cease clear communication. He knows it makes movement uncertain, unsteady. He knows that Akira can endure more than most, but that crying jag will have taken more out of him now that it typically would have. ] Do you want to go back to the room?

[ It isn't really a question, as much as it is a guess. He thinks it might at least be more comfortable. They might catch a few minutes of rest, even if there was no chance of satisfactory sleep. ]

[dvmn]

[People grew into the shapes that others' influences molded them into. It wasn't the only factor, of course. Another was the scape of their environment and their placement within it, and there were some intrinsic aspects that could be argued existed in some sense from birth. Akira doesn't have the ability to imagine what sort of person he would be now without the distinct individual factors which had helped to form him. Without Ryo and his friendship in the early dawn of their childhood, without his parents (or perhaps with his parents), without the Makimuras. Life was a finite period of time, so it wasn't efficient to spend too much of it thinking of what might have happened if things had gone differently.

But it all precipitates to that Akira thinks that he is very much the better for having known Ryo, and he likes to stand as a similar figure in the other's own life. When banded together, people tended to become something greater than the sum of their parts.

Though Akira had never quite agreed with Ryo's perception, of his staunch "us against the world" view that even when unvoiced went unspoken and electric in the intent beneath his words and actions, there was something trained in him that could reflexively twinge towards such a response. When it came to what was metaphorical, Akira's thoughts were slow, disorganized, without base. But when pushed up to the precipice of action, backed by the inevitability of disaster, he became a steel trap. Some were meant to think, and others were meant to act. Whether that was something bred into their bones and the wiring of their brains or it was something they developed, either defensive or responsive, he isn't sure. He'd never really be sure. He leaves the deepest of his thinking up to others.

It's a comfort to him. One similar to the one that enshrouds him like the circle of Ryo's arms as he feels the faint vestige of the kiss he presses into his hair. Just as Ryo doesn't dwell upon it, neither does Akira; so much of their relationship has been an unspoken cadence of affectionate gestures.

He reaches out to take Ryo's hand, though he's still standing up mostly through his own impetus, feeling the tiredness from the aching around his eyes all the way down to the leaden feeling of his bones. He blinks at the question, and even before he drafts a formal response there's a twinge to his expression, something immediately telegraphing the type of answer he might give.

He ends up shaking his head.] ...No. [He's already spent enough sleepless hours in the room. It's why he'd come out here, started wandering around the station in the first place. He kept thinking about how the music seemed to be getting louder, as if the speakers were re-situating themselves right behind his head. He'd started to think about trying to rip the walls apart so he could find them and destroy them once or for all.

It was best he didn't end up getting into that cycle again.]

Somewhere else? I... don't really care where. I just don't really want to be in the room right now.

[luciformis]

[ For Ryo, he had never quite comprehended Akira's ability to trust.

Humanity had always found ways to take advantage tooth and claw. They had always found ways to better self-serve instead of self-sacrifice. They had always found anything odd to be worth abandoning, unless it could serve their cause. And in a way, Ryo had been the last of them. Ryo had given humanity an image, a cause. He had presented to them the truth of their world with Akira, but it would inevitably not be enough. Back there, in that place, Ryo knew innately that society would devolve until the threat was mitigated. He did not know if humanity had the ability to withstand at all. And through it, he'd promised still to protect Akira. He'd promised to keep him safe from what could cause him harm. He'd tried his utmost to do that still and here, but —

Ryo had always been this way since he could recall. He'd always had Akira at his side, until they were forced apart. He still remembers the way the tears had tracked down Akira's small face, the way he had clutched at his heart. He still remembers looking back until he could no longer see Akira at the door, Jenny's hand about his steady and cold. She'd felt familiar to him then, but there had always been that tightness in his chest until the day he'd called out to Akira at the docks. In many ways, it was an echo of their first meeting. A reversal of sorts, his hand held out to Akira to take as Akira once held out his own. In that way, in many ways — Akira had left his impression upon him. Ryo, in the aftermath of the first time Akira spoke, had been changed irreparably though he wouldn't know.

Not for a long, long time.

But, still, he watches as Akira mulls it over, takes his hand. He knows the answer before he says it and Ryo only nods once, silent. ]

Okay, [ he says, after the full of Akira's admission. He curls his fingers reflexively about Akira's hand. If that is what Akira wants, Ryo has trouble abiding to it.

Ryo doesn't need to tell him where they're going. He knows at some level that Akira would follow him anywhere, as much as Ryo would follow him. His pace keeps with Akira's naturally, winding through the dull corridors. No matter the manner of cleaning, the amount of travel and time — there was always something worn about the way they looked. Like the oceans back home, their surface were only at times reflective, the scuff of age blurring their forms, their faces. It's easiest to think in this way, against the drone of radio favorites. It's simpler to focus on the sound of his own footsteps, the weight of Akira's hand still caught up in his. For a moment, he wonders why he hasn't released it and realizes in equal measure there's no sense in doing it. It's always been comfortable this way. Since they were children, they'd been just like this: linked by the curve of their fingers, the meeting of the palms of their hands. He remembers in clear strokes the first time Akira had reached out to him, his grip assuring as it was warm. Ryo hadn't been able to fill that distance then, but he fills it now. It serves as an anchor, a distraction from all that torment them.

And in a way, it's like Akira said: you make everything quieter, even if Ryo does not permit himself to admit it. Not yet.

It's a quiet few minutes, but the door to the hydroponics must by now be familiar. Ryo doesn't hesitate to nudge the door open, to lead Akira through the rows of greenery to where it is the thickest. Amid the cheery heads of sunflowers, Ryo turns to him, the blue of his eyes somehow brighter against them and the omnipresent grey. ] Plant life provides natural sound absorption. [ He says, gesturing up with his spare hand. Sure enough, there is something more muffled about the quality in here. It isn't quiet, no, but the edge is gone enough to alleviate any pounding headache one might have. ] It'll be better here.

[ And it is. At least, in part. ]

[dvmn]

[It had never been so complicated to him. Having a keen insight into people meant that you saw the bad with the good, but the reason he'd never grown disillusioned is because he could see how people strove so hard to surpass what could be so much easier to them in order to be better.

It's never about the baseline of humanity. It was about their ability to reach past that, to augment themselves with empathy and compassion, to make their lives about not just the ruthless pursuit for what would better their own easeful existence but for the happiness and safety of others.

Not everyone was like that, of course. But enough were that he never lost his faith.

As he stands the hallway swims around him in a way that is not at all like being drunk or otherwise impaired; it's a distinct disconnect of information from what the eyes were perceiving to what the brain was prepared to process. Even when he had them uselessly closed, his eyes ached now, a dull headache pounding against his temples from the inside. For his merit Akira doesn't sway; were he still completely human he probably would have, but demons are agile and well-coordinated beasts. He takes a deep breath, preparing himself mentally for the process of moving himself from one place to another.

He follows Ryo in a kind of automatic way that was simply a part of something having become habit, spread throughout a lifetime. He started to get an idea of where he was taking him after a while, though he couldn't say he spent very much time in here. He had a vague worry of accidentally knocking a bunch of stuff over. But maybe one good side-effect of being physically exhausted is that he probably didn't have that amount of boundless energy to have something like that happen in the first place.

Akira blinks owlishly at the broad expanse of greenery when they enter. It's been so long since he's seen something like this, so he wasn't really prepared for the twist of homesickness that took root in his stomach, yearning for slow minutes spent sprawled out underneath the canopies of trees in a small copse off the path of their running route; Miki laughing and saying something gentle yet joking as Akira panted for breath out of the glare of the midday summer sun. He blinks again and the vision is gone, and visions of hiding out of sight of their supervisors in the foliage of the schoolyard back when they were kids, though there were ghosts of those memories clinging to him as he slowly turned to look Ryo in the eye. He holds his hand a little tighter, the pad of his thumb sweeping over one of his knuckles.]

Yeah. Much better. [He gives a faint smile. It's more in the sense of it. If the plants deadened much of the sound, the difference was made up in that Akira's hearing was much better than your garden variety human. But he did feel calmer, seeing something green and familiar growing in the cold, metallic heart of this terminal they were all stuck on.

This time he's the one to lead, gently pulling Ryo further into the rows of plants, idly inspecting them as he walks past.] I haven't been in here in a while. Wow... it all grew really fast, huh?

[He's quiet for a moment.]

Wish we could have stuff like this all over the ship. It'd make it feel a lot less... [he trails off, vocabulary failing him, mental exhaustion poking dozens of holes in his mental lexicon,] shitty. [Good enough.]

[luciformis]

[ Ryo knows greenery.

He holds no gentle and recent memories of it the way Akira does, but he too remembers hiding from their supervisors in the wild shrubbery. He remembers too the smell of bay roses at the shore, how he'd carefully dissected a specimen for Akira to see without brushing his fingers against the sharp ends of thorns. But, still, there's something older than that, more painful. He doesn't know why, at the residual corners of his memory, it takes root. Like night blooming flowers, their pale faces tilted up to the moon, he doesn't know what it is about the smell of Earth that draws him to it. But in that same way, he supposes, wouldn't it then be natural that he was drawn too to the sun? The heat of Akira's palm spreads through his, makes him softer — more malleable. He watches for Akira's reaction, knows that the fainter smile he gives him is not what he'd hoped, but in some ways had hoped for as he Akira's fingers brush across the curve of his knuckles, tightens their grip.

He tells himself that he doesn't know what it is that illuminates him from the inside out as Akira does, a distorted reflection of what Akira gives him so readily.

There's a warmth at the corners of his mouth, at the soft round of his shoulders. As children, he'd resisted the initial pull toward the world. In the classrooms, in the games that they would play — he'd kept toward the edge. He'd found more interest in the books the adults would open, in the manipulation of toys beyond their intended purpose. And Akira, who cried for anyone, situated himself beside Ryo and never learned how to part. Ryo doesn't wonder what would happen if he did, because he knows no other world without Akira in it. He knows, in the deepest parts of him, there would be nothing left of him.

Still, he doesn't smile, but he needn't have to. His eyes are bright, no matter the weight of the fatigue that sprawls between them both — a thick and heavy sediment. In its settling, it stirs up what's beneath more than Ryo cares to touch on. His heart hums, certain but unsteady, assuaged and aggravated both by the way Akira doesn't let him go. It shouldn't be anything new (and it isn't), but Ryo reasons the potency of his reactions are in part colored by the environment, the nutrition they're forced to take in. He reasons it could be any number of things, as Akira weaves with him through the full and verdant rows. He reasons, when Akira remarks on the growth and his wishes, that his tongue trips because he'd been focused on which plants Akira lingered over longest. ]

We could ask Okumura-san, [ he says, after a long moment. The pad of his thumb, calloused as it, strokes over the broader edge of Akira's own. It's a reciprocal action, as his eyes flicker over to seek out Akira's. It's almost automatic. It's where his attention had always settled, in the end. ] The first hydroponics garden was her idea. [ He remembers when she'd first started. He'd visited her then, given her clearer ideas on what they could do to assure solid growth. And he'd visited at least once a day since then, no matter the discovery of the larger room. Her own had been more established, he reasoned. It was best to see what could be derived and transplanted from them. ] I'm sure she'd like to see that too.

[ He needn't vocalize that he suggests it for Akira's sake, but in many way he does. Already, his gears are turning even despite his lack of energy. He thinks of what they have in storage, what is already growing. He wonders which ones would most resemble the paths they'd tread at home. ]